Biased Gun Registry Poll Proves Not Much

A poll published on March 4th by the Washington Times claimed “huge majorities on [the] East Coast support [a] national gun registry.” Really? Maybe a more honest statement would be “huge majorities in carefully selected areas of the East Coast support a national gun registry.”

The problem is the “majorities” were in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia. No one was polled in North Carolina, South Carolina, or Florida, among other East Coast states.

“Huge majorities” makes an interesting headline, but all the poll really proved was that the poll or, at least the analysis of the data was flawed and biased. This looks like an example of made-to-fit statistics where the poll was designed to fit an agenda.

The poll was conducted by “Roanoke College in Virginia, Rutgers-Eagleton in New Jersey, and Siena College in New York.” When asked if they supported “establishing a national gun registry” 68 percent of New Yorkers said “yes,” 63 percent of Virginians said “yes,” and 74 percent of New Jersey residents said “yes.”

In response to other questions in the poll, published on the Roanoke College webpage, an even larger percentage of respondents supported “using federal funds to make free pre-kindergarten education to all children,” legalizing medicinal marijuana “in all 50 states,” and “approving a path to citizenship for people who are in the U.S. illegally, but are working, have no criminal record and pay taxes.”

Majorities in all three states also supported “legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states.”